Status of ACL north of Live Oak, FL.?

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I believe that the old ACL line running north from Live Oak, FL. to DuPont, Ga. (27 mi. E of Valdosta) is now gone. Can someone confirm this and also approx year of track removal ?

-- Greg A Hodges (105452.2520@compuserve.com), May 09, 1998

Answers

The remaining customer in High Springs is Lamson & Sessions, which I believe manufactures pvc piping at this plant. The tracks serving the plant (which is southeast of town) are the remains of the otherwise long-abandoned (ca. 1960) High Springs - Burnetts Lake segment of the Plant System (Savannah Florida & Western) route from duPont, GA south to Gainesville, and points south via the once narrow-gauge Florida Southern (another Plant holding).

The existence of this now-ambling High Springs "branch line" is almost unbelievable given CSXT's dogged determination to "rationalize" its Florida rail network.

BTW - The High Springs Depot museum is no longer in operation, and its contents were auctioned off several years back.

There are two "depots" in town: the former (ACL) depot museum (now a store), which was moved several blocks from its original location, and a totally unauthentic, but well-executed stucco "depot" building, which serves the Chamber of Commerce, I believe.

With a little determination, High Springs might have potential as a rail-themed movie-set locale or other modest rail-tourist operation, (e.g. with an Edwards Motor Car) but it'd likely be an iffy proposition at best. But we might still hope that the railroad flame might burn in High Springs a while longer.

I will soon post a brief timeline history of rail service to North Central Florida focused on Gainesville. My website is trainsofthought.com

-- Jeff Gerlach (jgerlach@trainsofthought.com), February 07, 2001.


I was in high springs yesterday and it is in sad shape... it appears only ONE industry is served in high springs... I have no clue why CSX still operates over the line to be honest with you... thats a long stretch of line to have only one customer... I may be mistaken, but i could detect NOTHING between newberry and high springs in the way of industry and in high springs i dont remember what the company was, but they only had 3 cars, covered hoppers. I would not be real surprised if this is the next abandonment

-- troy nolen (kirkwood@gdn.net), February 07, 2001.

As for the high springs railyard, it too is now 90% gone as of 9/1/98. Only one single track remains, and this goes only about 500 yards west of downtown before it too ends. This track is weeded over, and apparently out of service. The track east of high springs is still there, but only for a mile or so.

-- justin scheidt (jscheidt@ufl.edu), September 14, 1998.

The ACL yard at High Springs wasn't quite abandoned in 1990 -- just cut-off from use as a 'through' yard. The track north of the yard, including the bridge over the Santa Fe river was removed, but to the south it was still there. Last time I was there (2-3 years ago) it was being used for storage of hundreds of bad-order and otherwise unneeded freight cars. The guy who ran the ACL Depot museum in High Springs said that at one time there were over 700 cars in storage there. There were hundreds of cars there when I went through (mostly box cards, some refers and open hoppers). High Springs yard is still connected to CSX via Newberry, and is still owned by CSX (again, at least as of 2-3 years ago).

-- Neal Horner (nhorner@ibm.net), August 10, 1998.

Yes Greg the old ACL line between Dupont and Live Oak is History. Torn up around 1990 all the way down to High Springs, and that yard was also abandoned.

-- Donald R. Hensley, Jr. (taplines@greenepa.net), May 12, 1998.


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